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Optimize Debian for Intel Core i7-2600

I'm looking for ways to optimize Debian for my Intel Core i7-2600 system with 8 GB of memory and Asus ENGTX560 Top. Having used Gentoo before Debian I'm still used to optimize my system. I might even install Gentoo just to see how long an emerge world will take :-D

First choice is 32 or 64-bit. I prefer 32-bit with pae because a lot of proprietary games are still 32-bit. And vanilla Firefox and Thunderbird can be easily installed as well. Are there any advantages running 64-bit or is the performance still similar to 32-bit?

Next I'm thinking of tweaking the kernel setting the following options:

Unless the applications have run-time CPU detection, 32 bit packages are built without compiler flags for modern systems (such as MMX/SSE) because they need to be compatible with the oldest supported CPU.

On 64 bit the situation is a bit better, because all x86_64 CPUs support SSE2.

Whether the performance of 64 bit will be noticeably faster depends a lot on which compute-intensive tasks you plan to run.

Unless the applications have run-time CPU detection, 32 bit packages are built without compiler flags for modern systems (such as MMX/SSE) because they need to be compatible with the oldest supported CPU.

On 64 bit the situation is a bit better, because all x86_64 CPUs support SSE2.

I agree that it is better to run AMD64 because of the compiler flags. But most proprietary games are 32-bit. Will it still matter as much?

That has got nothing to do with it. For 32 bit games with a 64 bit os you just need 32 bit compat libs. The nv gfx drivers ship that too. In some cases you may need to do some updates but more likely when you update the kernel to something newer (to gain fullspeed) and the new kernel is without oss (via alsa compat modules) then you have got some problems. For 32 bit right now: you can use flash with vdpau support - not that you would really need it with that fast cpu. There is a backport repo for squeeze with firefox+thunderbird (called iceweasel+icedove) - you don't need the "official" versions. Btw. there is firefox 64 bit on the official server too and for thunderbird 3.3 there are 64 bit builds too. They are just a bit hidden. I use that repo for Kanotix:

About your memory

There is a small detail no one mention earlier. In case you don't know a 32-bit system (or game) is limited to 4 GB of memory. On a 64-bit system you may have the game and other software working more relaxed since there will be 4 GB unseen by the 32-bit game, but available to the OS for other apps to use. But in a 32-bit system the 4 GB limit kicks up to everything including the OS.

The only performance penalty I may see is a little longer loading time, because on that first run each day, the OS will load those 32-bit libs the game needs and are not used on anything else.